Black Zombie (2026)
Director: Maya Annik Bedward Run Time: 90 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2026
Starring: Anderson Mojica, Erol Josué, Mambo Labelle Déese Botanica, Slash, Yves-Grégory Francois
Country: Canada
Language: English, French, Haitian Creole
About the film:
Black Zombie (2026) digs beneath the blood-soaked spectacle of modern horror to uncover the zombie’s buried and unsettling origins. Long before it became associated with flesh-eating ghouls, the zombie was a living metaphor for slavery: not a monster, but the ultimate victim of colonial power. A symbol of stolen agency was recast as an object of fear, while Black spiritual traditions were distorted, sensationalized, and erased.
“An act of reclamation. The rare documentary you want everyone you know to watch.”
—Jessi Cape for The Austin Chronicle
Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie from colonial Haiti to contemporary Hollywood, reconsidering iconic films like White Zombie (1932), Night of the Living Dead (1968), and The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988) alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown.
Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, Black Zombie (2026) exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture’s most profitable monsters.
About the filmmaker:
Maya Annik Bedward is an Afro-Caribbean-Canadian film director whose work blends history, resistance, and pop culture through bold, genre-bending storytelling. Her work has screened at TIFF, Hot Docs, BlackStar, and the New Orleans Film Festival. Her credits include the short films The Haircut (2018) and Why We Fight (2021), as well as the TV series LIDO TV (2022) and BLK: An Origin Story (2022). She is a founding member of the Black Screen Office, championing stories that center Black creativity and power.
At the 30th Fantasia International Film Festival, Bedward won the Northern Excellence Award for Canadian Filmmaking for her debut feature film, Black Zombie (2026).
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